A monument honoring rabbis may join three memorials on Chaplains Hill. |
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“As far as we can tell, there’s no opposition on the Hill, just the need to focus the attention of key legislators,” said William Daroff, vice president for public policy at the Jewish Federations of North America, who’s helping lobby for the monument in Congress. He said House lawmakers have promised him the resolution would be voted on before Memorial Day, May 30.

“Unlike many things in Congress, this bill is simple and straightforward,” Weiner said Tuesday at a hearing on the measure before Runyan’s subcommittee, urging quick action. Weiner said he, too, was surprised to learn that there was no such monument at Arlington.

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“I am grateful that we are one step closer to erecting this monument and properly honoring the brave Jewish chaplains who served our country,” Weiner said.

The group’s plan was to raise about $20,000 to build a 7-foot-tall granite monument with a bronze plaque listing the names of Goode and 12 other rabbis who died in military service between World War II and the Vietnam War. Instead, it raised $50,000.

“The money just came in — in small $10 checks to $3,000 checks, and it’s still coming in,” Robinson said.

The monument would mirror the design of three others on Chaplains Hill — one honoring chaplains who died in World War I, a second honoring Catholic chaplains from World War II through Vietnam and a third honoring Protestant chaplains killed in the two world wars.

Excess money raised will be used for educational projects, such as promoting the story of Goode and his colleagues, Robinson said.

Goode and his fellow Army lieutenants George Fox, a Methodist minister, John Washington, a Roman Catholic priest, and Clark Poling, a Dutch Reformed minister, were among 902 people aboard the Dorchester, a cruise ship converted into an Army transport, when it was torpedoed by a U-boat on Feb. 3, 1943. The four — known variously as the “Four Chaplains” or the “Immortal Chaplains” — helped calm survivors of the attack and pass out life vests. When the vests ran out, each gave up his own.

Witnesses saw them linked arm in arm, praying together as the ship slipped under the water. Among military chaplains that image has become an icon for the interfaith cooperation that makes the U.S. system unique.

“It really expresses what the soul of America is about,” Robinson said.